PSYC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Sclera, Cornea, Inattentional Blindness
2 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
PSYC 100 – Lecture 9
Sensation and Perception
• Sensation is the process of detecting external events by sense organs and turning
those stimuli into neural signals
• Perception involves attending to, organizing, and interpreting stimuli that we
sense
• Transduction: when specialized receptors transform the physical energy of the
outside world into neural impulses
• Doctrine of specific nerve energies: the idea that different senses are separated in
the brain; proposed by German physiologist Johannes Muller in 1826
• Sensory adaptation: the reduction of activity in sensory receptors with repeated
exposure to a stimulus
• Stimulus thresholds
o Absolute threshold: the minimum amount of energy or quantity of a
stimulus required for it to be reliably detected at least 50% of the time it is
presented
o Difference threshold: the smallest difference between stimuli that can be
reliably detected at least 50% of the time
• Signal detection
o Signal detection theory: states that whether a stimulus is perceived
depends on both sensory experience and judgment made by the subject
Attention and Perception
• Divided attention: paying attention to more than one stimulus or task at the same
time
• Selective attention: involves focusing on one particular event or task, eg.
studying, driving w/o distraction
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
65
PSYC 100 Full Course Notes
Verified Note
65 documents
